EVENING IN THE LAND OF DREAMS by Mikal Trimm
A fog rolls over Hollywood
composed of not-quite-mist. Instead,
the memories of heroines
and idols of the matinee
descend upon their Babylon
and mourn the passing of their dreams.
Their Golden Age long tarnished, and
their silent world now shattered, they
may only wander voicelessly
across the hills of Beverly
and gaze upon their once-were homes
while mocking the inhabitants.
No bright stars left, no legends, no
great ingénues, they tell themselves;
no passion for our flickered art,
our painted masques, our Fairy Tale —
they work the screen as if it were
a failed theater. Thespians
without a script. Technology,
that actor’s bane, is now their god.
The vaunted Silver Screen is blue
or green, and it replaces Art
with artifice. The bitter scent
of brittle, yellowed celluloid
wafts through the streets of Tinseltown
as whispered echoes fill the air:
remember Astor, Chaney, Gish,
Chase, Valentino, Bow and Brooks
and Lloyd and Langdon, Mix and Todd
and Bara, Shearer, Barrymore —
we never left. We never will.
A streetlight winks, a palm tree nods.
The whores on Sunset Boulevard
Touch up their make-up, feeling old,
While near-mist ghosts recall a time
When Hollywoodland owned the world.